Heterogeneity and complexity of a simulated terrestrial environment account for the superiority of the atruistic gene

Abstract

Recent research on the notion of altruism in terrestrial life has
focused on certain altruistic behaviors, which are regarded as
beneficial to animal life, especially with respect to individual
animal species. Such findings throw light on individualoriented
mechanisms and their evolution in helping to clarify
so-called intentional interactions between individuals based on
discrimination of other individuals and remembered
information as advanced by developments in biological
information processing, ranging from molecular recognition to
activation of the neural system. In 2006, Nowak classified these
mechanisms into five types. In the current study, we have
zeroed in on the process of autolysis universally observed in all
terrestrial lives, as characterized by genetically programmed
death accompanied by altruistic self-decomposition, whose
model we call the "programmed self-decomposition model
(PSD Model)". In our view, altruistic phenomena target no
specific individuals yet prove beneficial to the ecosystem, in
part and as a whole. Using our PSD Model we ran evolutionary
simulations of altruistic phenomena in the SIVA Series, which
is an artificial life system designed to resemble a terrestrial
ecosystem, and one that excludes both discrimination of
individuals and interactions between individuals. In our
simulations no individual-oriented evolutionary mechanism
was observable while the ecosystem-oriented mechanism
positively contributed to the evolution of the altruistic gene.
Our research has thus sought to determine factors that promote
superior evolutionary characteristics of altruistic phenomena in
a terrestrial ecosystem model. The current study argues that the
high heterogeneity and complexity of a terrestrial environment
and the eternality of evolutionary time play an important role in
the selective process of programmed death in the terrestrial
ecosystem, which is accompanied by altruistic selfdecomposition.
Based on the above findings, we investigated
the inseparable relationship existing between a terrestrial
ecosystem and the altruistic gene.